


Ocean Breeze

by sannlykke



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Confessions, Day At The Beach, M/M, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: “Have you been to the beach here before?”The question comes as something of a surprise. Wei pauses tying his shoelaces to look up at Tatsuya, whose face is ever the same. He frowns.“No.” And then, because there seems to be some sort of prompting in the air between them, he continues. “I’ve never seen the ocean up close before, actually.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stephanericher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/gifts).



> i was not expecting this to be over 1k but, little did i know lmao
> 
> this is also basically 'i did all of this shit last summer so why not put it in a fic where literally nothing happens except cheesy shoujo romance because i want something nice and soft to happen for once!!!!'
> 
> i'm...preemptively really sorry if they're ooc orz

“Have you been to the beach here before?”

The question comes as something of a surprise. Wei pauses tying his shoelaces to look up at Tatsuya, whose face is ever the same. He frowns.

“No.” And then, because there seems to be some sort of prompting in the air between them, he continues. “I’ve never seen the ocean up close before, actually.”

 

 

“Really?”

Wei shrugs, eyeing the rest of their teammates filing out the door. It’s not quite summer yet, but the humidity in the air is enough to tell him that they’re almost there. “The province I’m from doesn’t border the sea.”

“Ah.” Tatsuya picks up the last stray ball, tossing it into the pile; it makes a dull thump, and he turns to smile at Wei. It’s inscrutable, but somehow on purpose. The kind of smile that riles him up inside, but Wei keeps his mouth shut for now. “I used to see it all the time. I haven’t been, since I came back from America.”

“Oh.”

“We should go this summer,” Tatsuya says. Wei gives him a curious look, and he continues, “The team, I mean. Maybe practice camp, or something.”

“Right,” Wei says, dully, in an attempt to reconcile inside him those words with what Tatsuya had said in the beginning. “That would be fun.”

 

 

A kind of trip like this takes planning, Wei knows, but he also knows that Coach Araki would never let them off that easily. The team trains almost nonstop through the first month of summer, and the breaks in-between are never enough so that they can take off to wherever the beaches are in the south; or if they are, there’s always someone who can’t make it.

It wasn’t like he had been looking forward to it in the beginning, something that had been so casually suggested. But then he had called home to his parents in Jingdezhen and they’d told his brothers; every time he called after that there would be a small voice asking for pictures of the beach. And August is running out fast.

“Himuro,” he calls out one day, after practice. They have a three-day break the day after tomorrow, which is to say no time at all for planning. “Why...why don’t we go this weekend?”

“This weekend?” 

“No matter how many people can go,” he says, more determined this time, and a little hastily. “I heard Fukui say that, um, people aren’t allowed on the beach after August, so I thought - ”

“That’s weird,” Tatsuya replies, but he tilts his head in a way that Wei finds terribly endearing and a little unfair. “But yes, I suppose we can try. Do you already have a place in mind?”

“I just searched online - there’s this place I found...“

(They spend the rest of the walk back to the dorms talking about it, promising to look up hostels and telling the others and hoping that in this tiny span of time something will get done, and it isn’t until Wei is back in the air-conditioned box of his room that he realizes what he really wants is to go with _Tatsuya_.)

 

 

It works out for him, in a way, when nobody else save him and Tatsuya are able to make it.

“Why couldn’t Murasakibara come?” He asks, and though he thinks it’s not too hard trying to mask his relief Tatsuya still glances at him curiously before he answers.

“Something about his middle school friends, I think.”

“Oh.”

They find their spots on the shinkansen just as it starts pulling out of the station, and soon the countryside is flying past them, all the greens and golds of summer just starting to be seen with the sun’s rosy colors unfolding with the morning. Tatsuya is already nodding off, an arm propped up against the window and the other one over his luggage. It’s a little cramped for the both of them, more so for Wei, but he’s already yawning too, both of them having gotten up at four thirty in the morning and rushing into the station because the bus had been late.

(He tries to keep his eyes open, very much enjoying the serenity of Tatsuya’s face as he sleeps, but Wei too succumbs to his exhaustion somewhere between Omagari and Kakunodate.)

Three and a half hours later the train terminates at Tokyo Station, and they meander through the impossibly large labyrinth of platforms and elevators and escalators to find the platform for the Tokaido line. It’s kind of jarring that they’re suddenly surrounded by what seems like a never-ending stream of people - though, as Wei reflects, it's like this back home for him. It's just that he's been gone for so long, perhaps, that he feels fascinated all over again.

Their destination is only an hour and a half away - it’s not as if either of them are unused to public transportation by now, but. “Do you have the directions to the hostel?”

“I thought _you_ were the one with the email…”

Well.

 

 

The city, from the little Wei had read online, is mostly a bedroom community, its residents spilling into Tokyo and Yokohama in the mornings and quietly flowing back in again at night. But there is some sort of unwitting charm too, slower-paced even with the hordes of tourists like them streaming from the station to their various destinations on the Shonan coastline. In his own country it is only new skyscraper after new skyscraper, competing to be the first to reach a smoking heaven.

Tatsuya calls the lady (thankfully Wei had had the foresight to at least save the name and number into his phone before leaving), his voice smooth and charming even over the bad reception inside the tiny shokudo they are currently in after disembarking the last connection train. Wei sits across him, slurping some sort of noodles that had been recommended to them by a tourist flyer (it’s not bad, but they could probably do better.) He puts his chopsticks down as Tatsuya finishes the call. “Well?”

“It’s not a far walk,” Tatsuya shrugs, and slides the phone back across the table to him. Their hands touch briefly, and Wei finds the other’s fingers pleasantly cool even in the heat. “You done?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

He thinks he can smell the sea already, salt and sand and summer. The path leads them down a long flight of steps; its railings, once an off shade of cream, now crumble beneath his fingers into grey specks of paint. Wei dusts off his hands as Tatsuya turns around curiously. “What’s up?”

“It’s just a little dirty.”

Soon after turning a few more corners Wei spots a weathered sign hanging off the building at the end of the road, proclaiming itself as a _wagashi_ store. Beside it, a smaller sign said _Vacancy_. “That’s the place, isn’t it?”

“Looks like it.”

They greet the landlady, a sweet older woman by the name of Suzuki who looks both delighted and slightly terrified at the two of them taking up much more space than anticipated. Wei could almost touch the ceiling. If he extends his arm, he certainly could have, but he doesn’t. There’s air conditioning inside, but he still feels a little too warm from the trek outside.

Glass counters proudly showcased several types of local confectionery; he can smell sweet rice and azuki paste, a whiff of tea. Tatsuya makes small talk in a pleasant tone as they follow Suzuki-san up a flight of narrow creaking stairs, down the hall of the second floor to the room at the end. There aren’t any other bookings at the moment, she tells them, so they essentially have the whole floor to themselves, but _do_ be quiet after ten. Breakfast would be left outside their door at seven, the washroom is downstairs, here, have some flyers for local attractions…

“Wonder what she thinks of us,” Wei says after Suzuki-san leaves them to unpack. There’s still a faint smell of flour and sugar wafting through the room as he drops his bag on the futon and starts measuring the bed (he’d be grateful if it could fit up to his calves.) “I mean, it doesn’t look like this place gets a lot of traffic.”

Tatsuya doesn’t answer. Wei frowns; had he said something weird? There’s a creaking noise behind him that culminates in a rumble. He turns around and sees Tatsuya looking out window, seemingly fixated on something Wei can’t see. “Hm?”

“Look,” Tatsuya says, still not turning around. “You can see the beach.”

And he could. It’s bluer and brighter than he’d imagined it to be, shimmering under the early afternoon sunlight. There are already a few people milling about on the beach, though more would come when the heat is more forgiving, but Wei can already hear the waves, _rush rush rush, come down, come here_.

Tatsuya smiles up at him, in the sort of way that seems hopeful and nostalgic and too much to handle. He feels his face flush; hopefully Tatsuya would think it’s just the weather. “You up for a little swim?”

“Sure,” Wei says, keeping his voice steady this time. “I’d love to.”

 

 

Back in his hometown Wei had taken dives in the lake nearby before, though the place was always crowded. Not with tourists—it was an out of the way sort of place near the mountains, but perhaps it’s just the way he remembers things: his friends jostling each other in a race to get to the water first, adults shooing them away to fish in peace. He knows how to swim, though he is average at best.

It’s different here. The way the waves move, the golden expanse of sand—and it’s _hot_ , so much so he needs to be extra mindful not to get too much of it in his sandals—and the calls of the birds circling above his head are things he’s only seen in movies up until now. Wei bends down and picks up a seashell, feeling the grit beneath his fingers.

“Over here! Liu!”

Tatsuya waves at him from the water; he’s already waist-deep, the waves rolling over his back, his hair wet with sea-spray. If Wei had found him beautiful in normal lighting, this is getting to be too much. Still, he doubts Tatsuya can see his expression from the way the sun is positioned, and he makes a beeline for the other.

The water is warmer than he expects, which helps when Tatsuya decides to play dirty and hits the water with his arms as soon as Wei approaches, splashing water all over his face.

“Oi, what was that for!”

It doesn’t take long for him to chase Tatsuya down after that, though he almost trips over his own legs in the process. The water is clear, the sun bright, and there isn’t much else he could ask for.

 

 

In the late afternoon sun they stroll down the quiet street, only stopping to get kakigori (Wei gets strawberry; Tatsuya gets melon) or look at the colorful surfboards lined up against a fence (“Taiga loves surfing,” Tatsuya tells Wei, in a fonder tone of voice than he used last year, “but I’m sure he has better ones at home.”)

Wei scratches his head; both of them still have sand clinging everywhere, their hands sticky from saltwater and running syrup. At some point, Tatsuya had even gotten it into his hair—it’s kind of cute, how his messy cooking translates into messy eating as well. Others not on the basketball team might find him to be the epitome of elegance—and Tatsuya certainly gave off those airs regardless of who he’s around—but the multiple team outings had proved otherwise. “Yeah, I guess. Is there a restroom somewhere? I kinda want to wash my hands.”

“We could go back to the hostel before dinner?”

They haven’t gone very far, after all. This neighborhood seems to be the sleepy part of town, far away from the noise and fireworks. When they take the night train back to Akita they might be able to see it, but Wei isn’t keeping his hopes up for that.

(And still the thought lingers at the back of his mind in the most uncooperative fashion.)

 

 

When he wakes Tatsuya is still asleep beside him, face half-buried in his pillow. Sunlight streams through the window. The clock reads five past seven. Wei rolls out of bed, bumping his legs against the closet (even after close to two years of living in Japan he still marvels at just how _tiny_ the rooms are) just as he hears a knock on the door.

“Hello?”

Tatsuya stirs beside him but doesn’t move any further; Wei rubs his eyes and heads towards the door, opening it to reveal Suzuki-san with a tray. “Oh, hello, you’re both up now?”

“Uh.” Wei takes a quick glance backwards. “Nope. I’ll take this, though. Thank you for the food, Suzuki-san.“

“Of course, it’s no problem,” she answers, indicating towards the stairs. “I’d better get going now, we’ve got to get ready to open shop. And oh, there’s going to be another couple coming in next door today, just so you know—I’m not speaking too fast, am I?”

“No, uh, I can understand—“

“Good, good,” Suzuki-san says, more to herself than to Wei it seems; she bows a little hastily (Wei can smell the azuki beans again; perhaps they had a large order to fulfill?) and tiptoes as fast as she can down the stairs, leaving him staring at the empty hallway. Maybe she’s disappointed it wasn’t Tatsuya who had answered the door. Then he realizes something.

“…Couple?”

“Hey, is that breakfast?” Tatsuya murmurs, peering over his shoulder. Wei almost jumps, but thankfully does not drop the tray. “Whoa, be careful.”

“I _am_ careful, you just sneaked up on me.”

“Mm-hmm.”

They eat in mostly peaceful silence, crowded over the tiny table provided inside the room. Tatsuya accidentally knocks over his tea at one point, and Wei has to run to the bathroom two more times to clean up the natto they’d collectively spilled. By the end of the meal, it’s clear both of them are still hungry.

“Let’s go back to the station,” Wei says. “I think there’s a convenience store nearby.”

“We can hop on the train after that,” Tatsuya replies, reaching for the pamphlet stuck haphazardly between the tray and box of tissues. “Enoshima’s only the next station over. There’s probably less people in the morning, I hope.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

The train station is quiet, as predicted. They finish eating their store-bought rice balls on the platform; Wei throws a bit of rice at the sparrows pecking around the benches beside them, then catches Tatsuya watching him with an even more unreadable expression than usual. “…Is this considered littering?”

“Mm, don’t think so,” Tatsuya says, shrugging. Wei exhales when he turns away. _Get a hold of yourself, man_. “Anyway, I think—yeah, that’s the train coming.”

Despite the time there’s still quite a few people on board already, though it’d be an hour or two before day-trippers would get here. The front seats are all taken (in any case, both of them are tall enough to block the views of nearly everyone else inside the car) so they opt to stand near the door, watching the scenery fly past. Little houses and apartment buildings lined up neatly against each other, the morning sun shedding its light over the trees and walkways—the railway so narrow that if he could just open the windows, Wei is certain he could touch the leaves outside. Instead, he takes out his phone and gets a few pictures.

Not a few minutes later the train pulls into Enoshima, disgorging about half of its occupants onto the small platform. It’s almost nine, just in time for some of the shops to start opening; Wei could see far down the street where people are already milling about, ooh-ing and aah-ing over trinkets and plastic food samples. Though the sun is not yet directly over their heads, umbrellas are already popping up everywhere.

“Doesn’t look like too long of a walk,” Tatsuya says, peering at the map in front of the station. Though Wei has his doubts about Tatsuya’s navigational abilities (to say nothing of how they got lost at least three times last night looking for a restaurant) the path seems relatively straightforward, and they’d have time to explore the island before it gets too hot to move. Wei bends down and moves in a little closer to see the names on the map, and is suddenly made all too aware of Tatsuya’s cologne. “It says we can take a boat here, if we want.”

“We could.” He’s not good at discerning perfume notes, but whatever it is, it smells fresh and woody with a hint of spice. Wei looks away towards the shops. “I mean, if it’s not too expensive or anything.”

“Right.”

It gets imperceptibly warmer as they stroll down the street, taking in the environment—low cream-colored buildings and wooden storefronts, ice cream parlors and tiny boutiques and old inns. As they get closer to the water Wei could see the long bridge; beyond it, verdant green rising from the sea.

They climb up the steep incline leading to the shrine, pausing along the way to look at fried squid and window displays, fish and shrimp swimming around in newly-cleaned tanks. Tatsuya seems quieter than usual, though he does still comment on things here and there. It’s not like Wei can ask him; one thing might lead to another, and even now he still isn’t sure he wants to tell Tatsuya about his thoughts leading from Akita all the day down here.

Maybe he’s a little nervous, okay. It’s _weird,_ this whole convoluted _thing_ of—dare he think it—falling for a teammate.

After paying their respects at the shrine (“Man, these steps are killing me.” “Don’t you have shrines like this in China too? Like all up in those mountains.” “Yeah, true—”) Wei flips out his phone, taking a few more pictures from his vantage point on the shaded path. He could see a steep drop to his left, hawks circling the air, the wide expanse of the sea sparkling before him. The bridge seems tiny from afar, the people nothing but insects crawling along its sides. Tatsuya’s leaning against the rails; Wei can’t see his face, but the corner of his mouth is curved upwards.

Emboldened, perhaps, or feeling just the bit more blessed from the visit to the shrine, he touches Tatsuya’s arm. “Hey, I heard them say something about seeing Mt. Fuji from up there.”

“Oh?” Tatsuya eyes the path leading up the mountain. Wei nods, hopeful; there’s an interesting sort of glint in Tatsuya’s eye that he can’t really place. “In that case—“

“I’ll race you to the top?”

“What—hey!” Tatsuya is already sprinting up the relatively empty road by the time Wei has time to register what just happened, and he, shaking his head, could only follow. “That’s cheating!”

“You’ve got longer legs, you’ll catch up!”

That might be true, Wei thinks as he does eventually catch up, but something also tells him Tatsuya’s running from more than just the heat.

 

 

That something comes up again soon after, after lunch at one of the inns (the fish is so _fresh_ , of a variety Wei had never eaten before, not even up in Akita) and after they’ve hopped on the train yet again.

“Of course I’ve watched it,” Tatsuya is saying, mock-offended as he leans against the window. The mid-afternoon sun becomes slivers of light in his dark hair as he moves, but this time Wei keeps his eyes strictly on Tatsuya’s face as he speaks. “I think a lot of kids in my neighborhood did too, Asian or not—that and Space Jam.”

“Space…Jam? Is that some kind of food?”

“Not unless you think basketballs are edible.”

“Murasakibara probably does,” Wei grumbles, eliciting a chuckle from Tatsuya as he turns towards the door. “Anyway, apparently this is where they took the scene from the opening.”

It’s a tiny station, but many more people than he’d expected get off, all of them heading in the same direction. Tatsuya watches him, half-amused, as he pulls out his phone yet again. The good thing about being tall, Wei surmises, is that he could stand behind the whole crowd of people on the slope and still get a clear view of the train tracks. And beyond it, the sea.

They wait.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Wei mumbles a few minutes later when the next train still hasn’t come by. He’s a little embarrassed, the feeling only mitigated somewhat by the size and variety of the crowd all doing the same thing. It probably speaks volumes to just how much of an impact Slam Dunk had had in East Asia. Tatsuya, though, looks way too happy for a guy watching a horde of tourists waiting to take a picture. “Look, I know it looks stupid…are you making fun of me?”

“You’re so focused,” he replies, evading the question as always. Though this time, after Wei turns his attention back towards the train tracks, he feels a weight on his shoulder. “Is this okay? I’m a little tired.”

Wei almost holds his breath; Tatsuya is standing behind him on higher ground, which is how he’s able to even rest his head on Wei’s shoulder. His mind races for an answer, but suddenly something else comes into the picture.

He raises his arm and snaps a few quick photos—hopefully one of them caught the train as it went past, eliciting yells and clapping from the tourists. One by one, the crowd started to move away, slowly being replaced by another horde that had just disembarked.

“Well, that’s that.”

Tatsuya moves away; it’s clear to Wei by now that he hadn’t wanted to move at all. He looks around, and, finding that nobody’s bothering to look the way of two high school students, grabs Tatsuya’s hand.

“Hm?”

“Let’s…let’s go down there.”

Tatsuya doesn’t speak until they’re both leaning against the rails, taking in the sea-spray and sunlight. It’s hot, but not as much as it had been earlier, and the horizon is starting to burn orange. “It’s beautiful here.”

Wei bites his lip before something cheesy like _you’re beautiful_ escapes, but he feels like at this point Tatsuya can probably hear his thoughts. That’s probably exactly what it is—nobody ever sees Tatsuya’s left eye because it’s some sort of mind-reading device, and he’s now just torturing Wei with all of this embarrassing newfound information he’s kept to himself since the start of the trip.

“Liu? Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he says, shaking his head. “Sorry. I just…thoughts got away from me. Is that how you say it?”

“More or less.” Residual heat from noon still clings to the railings, and yet Tatsuya has both hands curled over them, in the way Wei recognizes as him trying to figure out what to say. He’s always been like that—charming and knowing exactly how to act in a crowd, but everything else that comes after that, whatever else is close to the heart, that’s much harder to see. They stand in silence for a while, listening to distant conversations and birdcall and the rumble of the train, waves lapping against the shoreline beneath their feet. “Liu—“

“Himuro,” Wei says slowly, the syllables rolling off his tongue like water, like the waves gently rolling ashore, “Do you want to go out with me?”

He doesn’t look at Tatsuya as he says this, which might’ve been a mistake; what if Tatsuya hadn’t heard? But when Wei finally dares turn towards him, Tatsuya has a hand to his mouth—he’s _laughing_.

“I’d been waiting for you to ask.”

Wei blinks. “…What.”

“I said—“

“I heard what you said,” Wei interrupts, his face more than a little red. At this moment he wants nothing more than to push Tatsuya into the water, but with the amount of people milling about he’d be deported in no time. Instead, he punches Tatsuya on the shoulder, then turns resolutely towards the sea. As anticlimactic as it had been, that’s one more metaphorical weight off his shoulder. That, and the fact that it's clear that it hadn't just been him who'd been agonizing over this. “Bastard. You just _waited_?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Like I’ll believe you.”

“Really,” Tatsuya says, leaning in. As much as he wants the satisfaction of letting Tatsuya’s head hit the rail, having the solid certainty of skin against skin is rather nice. Though he still maneuvers his body as far away as he could without breaking contact; Wei can't let Tatsuya have _everything_ go his way, after all. “I wasn’t sure if you even wanted to tell me until we came here.”

Wei rolls his eyes. “You could’ve given better hints.”

“Better than yours, you mean?”

It takes all of his willpower for Wei to not slam dunk him into the ocean right there and then.

 

 

After that, it’s almost as if the remains of their time here, flowing slowly up until that point, finally kicks into gear. They get off at Hase to see the Buddha (and try to enter the bottom, but Wei hits his head trying to duck into the low, narrow space, which puts an end to that) and get matcha soft serve on their way out. Tatsuya buys him a Sakuragi keychain at a souvenir kiosk, and Wei gets him a bandana depicting the Buddha riding Hokusai’s famous Great Wave on a surfboard.

“You’d be able to pull anything off,” he tells Tatsuya, after they finally stopped laughing about it.

Tatsuya had protested, but the next time Wei looks back towards him he finds it tied neatly around Tatsuya’s neck. He’d been right—the bastard _could_ make anything look good. “Where should we go next?”

“It’s getting dark,” Wei says. He’s swinging his arms again, an unintentional habit. Tatsuya catches him halfway through a swing, and they settle into something Wei dares not yet call a routine—fingers entwined, pacing level as they stroll back towards the station. Summer though it is, they’d spent a decent amount of time just looking, existing, marveling at a place so different from home. He looks at Tatsuya, poker-faced as ever, though there’s a slight tinge of red to his cheeks that hadn’t been there before. “Too bad we’re going back tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Tatsuya replies. His fingers tighten a little around Wei’s, a constant reminder that sends his heart beating just a little faster, silly as it sounds. _This is some shoujo shit_ , he thinks to himself, but Tatsuya’s voice quickly drowns out those thoughts. “It’s been wonderful, though, these two days. I’m really glad, Wei.”

“You brought it up first,” Wei says, feeling his ears immediately heat up at the mention of his first name. He pulls Tatsuya close as they get to the station, away from the crowds heading back home, back to Tokyo, or wherever they came from. The stars are already starting to peek through the clouds above them, one by one, as they step onto the platform for the outbound train. “I thought it was like, what do you guys call it—“

“A booty call?”

“…No! Like, an invitation, I guess. You missed the ocean, didn’t you?”

“And you hadn’t seen it before.”

“Yeah.” He leans down—though not without some difficulty as they jostle their way into the door—and, once they’ve settled, leans against Tatsuya’s smaller frame. It’s crowded, yes, but the crowds remind him of home. “You're kind of an asshole, but I’m glad I got to see it with you.”

Tatsuya brushes aside Wei’s hair, windswept with salt clinging to each strand—and how Wei wishes he could do that with Tatsuya’s, but he knows it’s not the moment, not yet—and this time, Wei can read his expression all too well. “Me too. And, my answer—yes, Wei, I'll go out with you.”

As the train pulls out of the station, he hears the last of the summer fireworks begin.

**Author's Note:**

> if you're wondering what they're taking pictures of near the end, see [here](http://travelenoshima.jp/place/kamako.html).
> 
> and apparently in japan people don't go to the beach after the end of august (i could be wrong...or if i am, just chalk it up to fukui tricking liu about supposed japanese customs again.)


End file.
